June XIX

SS. Gervasius and Protasius, Martyrs

From St. Ambrose, Ep. 22, ol. 54, ad Marcellinam Soror., and St. Austin, de Civil. Dei, l. 22, c. 8; et. l. de Curapro mortuis, c. 17; et. Conf. l. 9, c. 7. See Tillemont, t. 2, p. 78; Orsi; and for the history of the great veneration which has been always paid to their relics, see the learned Dissertation of Joseph Antony Sassi, prefect of the Ambrosian library, entitled, Disscrtatio Apologetica ad Vindicandam Mediolano Sanctoruni Corporum Gervasii et Protasii possessionem; Bononiæ, 1709. See also S. Paulinus, Nat. S. Felicis II., published by Muratori, Anecd. Lat., and in the new edition of St. Paulinus’s works at Verona, p. 468. Consult above other moderns the accurate Puricclli, Diss. Nazar. et Monum. Basilicæ Ambros.

St. Ambrose calls these saints the protomartyrs of Milan. They seem to have suffered in the first persecution under Nero, or at latest under Domitian, and are said to have been the sons of SS. Vitalis and Valeria,¹ both martyrs, the first at Ravenna, the second at Milan. This latter city was the place which SS. Gervasius and Protasius rendered illustrious by their glorious martyrdom and miracles. St. Ambrose assures us, that the divine grace prepared them a long time for their crown by the good example which they gave, and by the constancy with which they withstood the corruption of the world. He adds they were beheaded for the faith.* They are said to have been twin brothers.

The faithful at Milan, in the fourth age, had lost the remembrance of these saints. Yet the martyrs had not ceased to assist that church in its necessities; and the discovery of their relics rescued it from the utmost danger. The empress Justina, widow of Valentinian I., and mother of Valentinian the Younger, who then reigned, and resided at Milan, was a violent abettor of Arianism, and used her utmost endeavors to expel St. Ambrose. The Arians did not stick to have recourse to the most horrible villanies and forgeries to compass that point. In so critical a conjuncture, our martyrs declared themselves the visible protectors of that distressed church. St. Austin, both in his twenty-second book Of the City of God,² and in his Confessions,³ says, that God revealed to St. Ambrose by a vision in a dream, the place where their relics lay. Paulinus, in his life of St. Ambrose, says, this was done by an apparition of the martyrs themselves. The bishop was going to dedicate a new church, the same which was afterwards called the Ambrosian basilic, and now St. Ambrose the Great. The people desired him to do it with the same solemnity as he had already consecrated another church in the quarter near the gate that led to Rome, in honor of the holy apostles, in which he had laid a portion of their relics. He was at a loss to find relics for this second church. The bodies of Saints Gervasius and Protasius lay then unknown before the rails which enclosed the tomb of SS. Nabor and Felix. St. Ambrose caused this place to be dug up, and there found the bodies of two very big men, with their bones entire, and in their natural position, but the heads separated from their bodies, with a large quantity of blood, and all the marks which could be desired to ascertain the relics.^†

A possessed person who was brought to receive the imposition of hands, before he began to be exorcised, was seized, and, in horrible convulsions, thrown down by the evil spirit upon the tomb.⁴ The sacred relics were taken up whole, and laid on litters in their natural situation, covered with ornaments, and conveyed to the basilic of Faustus, now called SS. Vitalis and Agricola, near that of St. Nabor, which at present bears the name of St. Francis. They were exposed here two days, and an incredible concourse of people watched the two nights in prayer. On the third day, which was the 18th of June, they were translated into the Ambrosian basilic with the honor due to martyrs, and with the public rejoicings of the whole city. In the way happened the famous cure of a blind man named Severus, a citizen of Milan, well known to the whole town. He had been a butcher, but was obliged, by the loss of his sight, to lay aside his profession. Hearing of the discovery of the relics, he desired to be conducted to the place where they were passing by, and upon touching the fringe of the ornaments with which they were covered, he that instant perfectly recovered his sight in the presence of an infinite multitude. This miracle is related by St. Ambrose, St. Austin, and Paulinus, who were all three then at Milan. Severus made a vow to be a servant in the church of the saints; that is, the Ambrosian basilic, where their relics lay. St. Austin, when he went from Milan, in 387, left him in that service,⁵ and he continued in it when Paulinus wrote the life of St. Ambrose, in 411. Many other lame and sick persons were cured of divers distempers by touching the shrouds which covered the relics, or linen cloths which had been thrown upon them. Devils also, in possessed persons, confessed the glory of the martyrs, and declared they were not able to bear the torments which they suffered in the presence of the bodies of the saints. All this is attested by St. Ambrose in his letter to his sister, in which he has inserted the sermon which he preached in the Ambrosian basilic when the relics arrived there. Two days after, he deposited them in the vault under the altar on the right hand. St. Ambrose adds that the blood found in their tomb was likewise an instrument of many miracles. We find the relics of these saints afterwards dispersed in several churches, chiefly this blood, which was gathered and mixed with a paste, as St. Gaudentius says.⁶ Also linen cloths dipped in this blood were distributed in many places, as St. Gregory of Tours relates.⁷ St. Austin mentions a church in their honor in his diocese of Hippo, where many miracles were wrought, and relates one that was very remarkable.⁸ He preached his two hundred and eighty-sixth sermon on their festival in Africa, where we find it marked in the old African Calendar on the 19th of June, on which day it was observed over all the West; and with great solemnity at Milan, and in many dioceses and parish churches, of which these martyrs are the titular saints. St. Ambrose observes, that the Arians at Milan, by denying the miracles of these martyrs, showed they had a different faith from that of the martyrs; otherwise they would not have been jealous of their miracles; but this faith, as he says, is confirmed by the tradition of our ancestors, which the devils are forced to confess, but which the heretics deny.*

St. Boniface, Archbishop, M.

of the order of camaldoli, and apostle of russia

Bruno, called also Boniface, was by extraction a nobleman of the first rank in Saxony, and agreeably to his high birth was his education in the study of the liberal arts, under Guido the philosopher, and other great masters. From the very cradle, piety was the predominant inclination of his heart, and he received very young the clerical tonsure. The emperor Otho III. called him to his court, and appointed him his chaplain, with the superintendency and care of the imperial chapel. So much was this prince taken with the virtue of the young saint, and with the sweetness of his disposition, that he placed in him an entire confidence, could not forbear publicly testifying on every occasion his tender affection and esteem for him, and usually called him his soul. Boniface was not at all puffed up with his favor, and armed himself against the smiles of prosperity by the constant practice of self-denial, and by the most profound humility. Seeing himself surrounded with vanities and delights, he was sensible that he stood in need of the stronger antidotes to preserve himself from their dangerous poison. His tender devotion, and his affection for holy prayer, especially for the public service of the church, are not to be expressed. And by his watchfulness and fervor he found his sanctification in the very place where so many others lose their virtue. One day as the saint was going into a church dedicated to St. Boniface, the bishop of Mentz, and martyr, he felt his heart suddenly inflamed with an ardent desire to lay down his life for Christ, and in a pious transport, he said to himself,—“Am not I also called Boniface? why may not I be a martyr of Jesus Christ as he was, whose intercession is implored in this place? From that time he never ceased sighing after the glory of shedding his blood for Him who redeemed us by his most precious death. St. Romuald coming to the emperor’s court in 998, Boniface, charmed with his saintly deportment, begged to be admitted into his order, and received the habit. It was with the greatest regret that the emperor saw him quit his court, but he thought he could not oppose his holy resolution, lest by so doing he should incur the divine displeasure.

Boniface inherited the spirit, and all the admirable virtues of the great St. Romuald. He who had been accustomed to sleep on soft beds, to wear rich garments of silk, and to eat at the table of an emperor to whom he was most dear; he who had long seen himself environed with the pomp and splendor of the world, and had been the first and the most favored of the courtiers, and of all the princes of the empire; contented himself with one poor coarse habit, walked barefoot, knew no other food than insipid roots and pulse, worked with his hands, earned his bread with the sweat of his brow, led a retired life, lay on straw or boards, and often, after having worked all day, passed the whole or the greatest part of the night in prayer. He often ate only twice a week, on Sundays and Thursdays, and sometimes rolled himself among nettles and thorns; so that no part of his body was without wounds and pain, to punish his flesh for what he called a neglect of penance and mortification in his youth. He with David continually begged of God, that by his grace he would confirm him in the good purpose which he had begun in his soul, and he marched a giant’s pace in the road of perfection. Having spent some years, first at Mount Cassino, afterwards under the direction of St. Romuald at Piræum, near Ravenna, and lastly, in an eremitical life, he obtained his superior’s leave to go and preach the gospel to the infidels. He therefore went to Rome barefoot, singing psalms all the way, and allowing himself no other sustenance than half a pound of bread a day, with water, and on Sundays and holidays a small quantity of roots or fruit. When he was arrived at Rome, pope John XVIII. approved his design, gave him all necessary faculties, and obliged him to accept a brief, directing that he should be ordained archbishop as soon as he should open his mission. Boniface offered himself to God as a victim ready to be sacrificed for the salvation of his brethren; and in these fervent sentiments travelled into Germany in the depth of a severe winter. He on that occasion sometimes made use of a horse, but always rode or walked barefoot, and it was often necessary to thaw his feet with warm water before he could draw them out of the stirrups in which they were frozen.

The saint went to Mersbourg to sue for the protection of St. Henry II. emperor of Germany; which having readily obtained, he was consecrated bishop by Taymont, archbishop of Magdeburg, who conferred on him the pall which Boniface himself had brought from Rome. The holy prelate, notwithstanding the fatigues of his missions, continued his severe fasts and watchings, and devoted all his time on his journeys to prayer, especially to the reciting of the psalms, in which he found great sweetness and delight. His desire to rescue souls from the blindness of sin and idolatry seemed insatiable; and the savage inhabitants of Prussia appearing to be the fiercest and most obstinate in their malice, he made them the first objects of his zeal. Boleslas, duke of Poland, and many great lords, made him rich presents; all which he gave to the churches and to the poor, reserving nothing for himself. He would have only heaven for the recompense of his labors: every thing else appeared unworthy of his ministry, and too much beneath what he hoped: he even feared that it might diminish his eternal reward, or infect his heart. It was in the twelfth year after his conversion from the world that he entered Prussia. But the time of the visit of the Lord was not yet come for the idolaters of that country. Boniface desired at least to die a martyr among them: but they remembering that the martyrdom and subsequent miracles of St. Adalbert of Prague had been an inducement to many to embrace the faith, refused him the wished-for happiness of sealing his love for Christ with his blood. Boniface being thus repulsed, left Prussia, and advancing to the borders of Russia on the other side of Poland, began there with great zeal to announce the gospel.* The Bollandists think¹ that in his mission in Prussia he converted to the faith the Livonians and Samogitians.

The Russians at that time were all barbarous idolaters, and had abated nothing of their ancient ferocity when St. Boniface undertook to plant the gospel among them. They sent him an order to leave their territories, and forbade him to preach the faith in their dominions. The saint paid no regard to this prohibition, and as he advanced into the country, the king of a small province was desirous to hear him. But when he saw him barefoot, and meanly clad, he treated him with contempt, and would not hear him speak. The holy bishop withdrew, and having put on a plain suit of clothes which he carried with him to say mass in, returned to the court. The king told him he would believe in Christ, if he could see him walk through a great fire without receiving any hurt. The saint, by a divine inspiration, undertook to perform the miracle in presence of the king, who seeing him miraculously preserved amidst the flames, desired to be instructed in the faith, and was baptized with many others. The barbarians were alarmed at this progress of the gospel, and threatened the saint if he proceeded further into their country. But words could not daunt him who thirsted after nothing more earnestly than the glory of martyrdom. The infidels soon after seized and beheaded him, with eighteen companions, in the year 1009. The Roman Martyrology proposes him to our veneration on this day, and again under the name of Bruno, on the 15th of October, probably on account of some translation.* See his life in Mabillon, Act. Ord. S. Bened. sæc. 6, p. 79, and St. Peter Damian in his life of St. Romuald. Also the Bollandists, t. 3. Junij, p. 907.

St. Juliana Falconieri, V.

The illustrious family of Falconieri in Italy received great honor from the sanctity of this holy virgin. Her father, Charissimus Falconieri, and his pious lady, Reguardata, were both advanced in years, and seemed to have lost all hopes of issue, when, in 1270, they were wonderfully blessed with the birth of our saint. Devoting themselves afterwards solely to the exercises of religion, they built and founded at their own expense the stately church of the Annunciation of our Lady in Florence, which, for riches and the elegance of the structure, may at this day be ranked among the wonders of the world. B. Alexius Falconieri, the only brother of Charissimus, and uncle of our saint, was, with St. Philip Beniti, one of the seven first propagators and pillars of the order of Servites, or persons devoted to the service of God under the special patronage of the Virgin Mary. Juliana, in her infancy, seemed almost to anticipate the ordinary course of nature in the use of reason, by her early piety; and the first words she learned to pronounce were the sacred names, Jesu, Maria. Fervent prayer and mortification chiefly took up her attention at an age which seems usually scarce capable of any thing serious. Such was her angelical modesty, that she never durst lift up her eyes to look any man in the face; and so great was her horror of sin, that the very name of it made her almost fall into a swoon.

In the sixteenth year of her age, despising whatever seemed not conducive to virtue, she bid adieu to all worldly thoughts and pleasures, renounced her great estate and fortune, and the better to seek the inestimable jewel of the gospel, she consecrated her virginity to God, and received from the hands of St. Philip Beniti the religious veil of the Mantellatæ. The religious men among the Servites are called the first order. St. Philip Beniti constituted his second order, which is that of the nuns, in favor of certain devout ladies. The Mantellatæ are a third order of the Servites, and take their name from a particular kind of short sleeves which they wear, as fittest for their work. They were instituted to serve the sick, and for other offices of charity, and in the beginning were not obliged to strict enclosure. Of this third order St. Juliana was, under the direction of St. Philip, the first plant; and as she grew up, the great reputation of her prudence and sanctity drawing to her many devout ladies, who desired to follow the same in stitute, she was obliged to accept the charge of prioress. Though she was the spiritual mother of the rest, she made it her delight and study to serve all her sisters. She often spent whole days in prayer, and frequently received great heavenly favors. She never let slip any opportunity of performing offices of charity towards her neighbors, especially of reconciling enemies, reclaiming sinners, and serving the sick. She sucked the most nauseous ulcers of scorbutic patients and lepers; by which means the sores are cleansed without the knife, or painful pressure of the surgeon’s hand, and a cure rendered more easy. By an imitation of this mortification and charity, do many pious, religious persons, who attend the hospitals of the poor, gain an heroic victory over themselves. Saint Juliana practised incredible austerities. In her old age she was afflicted with various painful distempers, which she bore with inexpressible cheerfulness and joy. One thing afflicted her in her last sickness, that she was deprived of the comfort and happiness of uniting her soul with her divine Spouse in the sacrament of the altar, which she was not able to receive by reason that her stomach, by continually vomiting, could not retain any food. The sacred host, however, was brought into her cell, and there suddenly disappeared out of the hands of the priest. After her death the figure of the host was found imprinted on the left side of her breast; by which prodigy it was judged that Christ had miraculously satisfied her languishing holy desire. She died in her convent at Florence, in the year 1340, of her age, seventy. Miracles have been frequently effected through her intercession, among which several have been juridically proved. Pope Benedict XIII. enrolled her name among the blessed, in 1729. His successor, Clement XII., put the last hand to her canonization.¹ Her order is propagated in Italy and Austria. See Bonanni’s History of the Founders of Religious Orders, t. 2; Giani in her life; and Papebroke, in his Appendix, t. 3, Junij, p. 923.

St. Die, or Deodatus, Bishop of Nevers,

and abbot of jointures

This saint was nobly born in the west of France, and endued with eminent gifts both of nature and grace. In 655, he was placed in the episcopal chair of Nevers. He fulfilled all the duties of the pastoral charge with great fear and trembling, till, in 664, he resigned his dignity, and having recommended to his clergy the choice of a successor, retired into the deserts, and there led an eremitical life. In 661, Hun, lord of the Val de Galilee, near Mount Vosge, bestowed on him that territory, and his donation was confirmed by Childeric II., king of Austrasia. Upon this spot St. Die founded the monastery of Jointures, which he put under the rule of St. Columban, though this was afterwards exchanged for that of St. Bennet. Dreading the charge of others, he continued still to live in a neighboring little cell, dedicated to St. Martin.*

St. Die gave up his soul to God in the arms of St. Hidulphus, on the 19th of June, in 679 or 680. A town called St. Diei rose about his monastery, and this abbey has been since converted into a collegiate church. See Mabillon, sæc. 3, Bened. and Bulteau, l. 3, c. 34.

¹ Ep. 22, ad Marcell. Soror.

* The pretended letter of St. Ambrose to the bishops of Italy, Ep. 53, giving a particular history of the lives and sufferings of these saints, notoriously contradicts the genuine letter of that father to his sister, and is universally rejected. See Tillemont. note 2, p. 499, t. 12, and the Benedictin editors of St. Ambrose t. 2, Append., p. 483.

² C. 8.

³ Conf. l. 9, c 7.

^† When St. Austin says the bodies were found entire, he means only that the bones were not broken mouldered, or separated out of their places, as is clear from St. Ambrose; not that the flesh was uncorrupt, as some have mistaken his meaning.

⁴ St. Ambr. Ep. 22, ad Sor.

⁵ S. Aug. Serm. 286.

⁶ S. Gaud. Serm. 17.

⁷ De Glor. Mart. c. 47.

⁸ L. 22, de Civ. Del, c. 8.

* Papebroke once Imagined that the bodies of SS. Gervasius and Protasius had been translated to Brisach in Alsace; but this mistake was refuted by Joseph Antony Saxi, prefect of the Ambrosian library, and ingenuously retracted by the author. One of the most ancient parish churches in Paris, mentioned in the sixth century by Fortunatus in his life of St. Germanus of Paris, is dedicated to God under the invocation or SS. Gervasius and Protasius. The frontispiece, composed of the three Grecian orders, the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian, one above the other, is esteemed by architects the greatest masterpiece of their art in France. The chapel of our Lady in this church is also admired.

* The Russi, or Rutheni, derived their pedigree from the Roxolani mentioned by Strabo, Mela, and Pliny; by whom we are informed that they were the most northern people of European Scythia that were known to the Romans, being situated beyond the Borysthenes at the back of the Getæ, whom the Romans called Daci. Their territory lay west to the Alani, and their name seems originally to have been Roxi or Rossi Alani. The word Rosscia in the Russian language signifies a scattering or dispersion, and this people were called Russi, because they lived dispersed in the fields and woods, often hanging their habitations, like their neighbors the Nomades, and the wandering Tartars at this day. Whence Procopius (l. 3, de Bello Gothico, c. 14,) by translating their name into Greek, calls them Spori, or scattered. See the etymology clearly proved by Herbersteinius in Comment, rerum Muscovit, by Hoffman, in Lexic., and by Jos. Assemani, Origin. Sclavorum, c. 3, p. 222. The name Roxolani was softened into Russia and Rutheni by the writers of the ninth and tenth centuries; for so they are called by Luitprand, bishop of Cremona, in 968, by the Annals of St. Bertin, and by the Greeks, as Nicetas in the Life of St. Ignatius. Simeon Metaphrastes in his Chronicon, and the continuator of Theophanes. At this day all those nations are called Russians which use the Sclavonian, not the Greek tongue, in the divine office, yet follow the rites of the Greek church, as the Muscovites, and certain provinces subject to Poland; some of which are Catholics, and others adhere to the Greek schism.

N. B. Bayer, who wrote De Origin. Scythar, in Comm. Acad. Petropolit. t. 1, p. 390, is very inaccurate in his Origines Russian.

¹ Bolland, t. 3, Junij, p. 908, § 2, n. 8.

* Some authors have distinguished this St. Bruno, or rather Brun, and St. Boniface; but the life of St Brun in Ditmar, compared with that of St. Boniface, given by St. Peter Damian. demonstrates the Identity of the person. And the Chronicle of Magdeburg expressly names him Brun, called Boniface.

¹ Bullar Rom. t. 15, p. 141.

* A little before this time, St. Gondebert, bishop of Sens, had abdicated his bishopric, and founded the abbey of Senones, three leagues from Jointures, where he died in 675. He is honored in Lorraine on the 1st of March. In 671, St. Hidulphus having resigned the archbishopric of Triers, founded the abbey of Moien-Moustier, in the middle between those of Jointures, Estival, Senones, and Bodon-Munster. This fast abbey, called also St. Saviour’s, was founded by the bishop of Toul, in whose diocese all these monasteries were erected. St. Hidulphus, called in the country St. Hidon, is honored on the 11th of July The monastery of Moien-Moustier is usually called St. Hidulphus’s, and in union with Saint Vanne’s (St. Vitonis,) situated In the city of Verdun, gave birth to the famous congregation of Benedictins which bears their names in Lorraine, also to that of St. Maur in France.

 Butler, A. (1903). The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints (Vol. 2, pp. 599–605). New York: P. J. Kenedy.